Any printout of a WhatsApp chat or email is automatically valid evidence in court.

Courts have held (in cases interpreting the equivalent earlier provision) that a proper certificate confirming how the record was created and that the device worked correctly is mandatory, unless the original device itself is produced in court.

This section only covers computers, not phones or messaging apps.

The 2023 law explicitly includes 'communication devices' like smartphones, and covers networks, cloud systems, and intermediaries, not just standalone computers.

Oral testimony describing an electronic record is enough without a certificate.

Under the interpretation developed for the earlier equivalent provision, oral evidence cannot substitute for the mandatory certificate, except in the narrow situation where the original electronic device is itself produced and proved in court.

Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023

Section 63

Admissibility of electronic records

(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Adhiniyam, any information contained in an electronic record which is printed on paper, stored, recorded or copied in optical or magnetic media or semiconductor memory which is produced by a computer or any communication device or otherwise stored, recorded or copied in any electronic form (hereinafter referred to as the computer output) shall be deemed to be also a document, if the conditions mentioned in this section are satisfied in relation to the information and computer in question and shall be admissible in any proceedings, without further proof or production of the original, as evidence or any contents of the original or of any fact stated therein of which direct evidence would be admissible.§

(2) The conditions referred to in sub-section (1) in respect of a computer output shall be the following, namely:—§

(a) the computer output containing the information was produced by the computer or communication device during the period over which the computer or Communication device was used regularly to create, store or process information for the purposes of any activity regularly carried on over that period by the person having lawful control over the use of the computer or communication device;§

(b) during the said period, information of the kind contained in the electronic record or of the kind from which the information so contained is derived was regularly fed into the computer or Communication device in the ordinary course of the said activities;§

(c) throughout the material part of the said period, the computer or communication device was operating properly or, if not, then in respect of any period in which it was not operating properly or was out of operation during that part of the period, was not such as to affect the electronic record or the accuracy of its contents; and§

(d) the information contained in the electronic record reproduces or is derived from such information fed into the computer or Communication device in the ordinary course of the said activities.§

(3) Where over any period, the function of creating, storing or processing information for the purposes of any activity regularly carried on over that period as mentioned in clause (a) of sub-section (2) was regularly performed by means of one or more computers or communication device, whether—§

(a) in standalone mode; or§

(b) on a computer system; or§

(d) on a computer resource enabling information creation or providing information processing and storage; or§

(e) through an intermediary, all the computers or communication devices used for that purpose during that period shall be treated for the purposes of this section as constituting a single computer or communication device; and references in this section to a computer or communication device shall be construed accordingly.§

(4) In any proceeding where it is desired to give a statement in evidence by virtue of this section, a certificate doing any of the following things shall be submitted along with the electronic record at each instance where it is being submitted for admission, namely:—§

(a) identifying the electronic record containing the statement and describing the manner in which it was produced;§

(b) giving such particulars of any device involved in the production of that electronic record as may be appropriate for the purpose of showing that the electronic record was produced by a computer or a communication device referred to in clauses (a) to (e) of sub-section (3);§

and purporting to be signed by a person in charge of the computer or communication device or the management of the relevant activities (whichever is appropriate) and an expert shall be evidence of any matter stated in the certificate; and for the purposes of this sub-section it shall be sufficient for a matter to be stated to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person stating it in the certificate specified in the Schedule.§

(5) For the purposes of this section,—§

(a) information shall be taken to be supplied to a computer or communication device if it is supplied thereto in any appropriate form and whether it is so supplied directly or (with or without human intervention) by means of any appropriate equipment;§

(b) a computer output shall be taken to have been produced by a computer or communication device whether it was produced by it directly or (with or without human intervention) by means of any appropriate equipment or by other electronic means as referred to in clauses (a) to (e) of sub-section (3).§

Why this exists

As governance and daily life moved online, courts needed a way to treat emails, CCTV footage, digital banking records, and mobile data as reliable evidence without demanding the original hardware every time. The predecessor provision, Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, was introduced in 2000 to address this gap. The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 carries this forward as Section 63, updating language to include 'communication devices' (like smartphones) and clarifying rules for cloud computing and intermediaries, given how much data today is created and stored across multiple devices and services rather than a single computer.

How courts read it

This provision continues the legacy of Section 65B of the old Evidence Act. In Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer (2014), the Supreme Court held that a certificate under this kind of clause is mandatory for electronic evidence to be admissible, overruling earlier practice that allowed oral proof. Later, in Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal (2020), the Court clarified that the certificate is mandatory except when the original device itself is produced in court, and it eased some procedural rigidity by allowing courts to direct production of the certificate at a later stage if genuinely unavailable despite best efforts. These rulings, developed under Section 65B, are expected to guide interpretation of Section 63 as well, though how courts will specifically apply the newer language on 'communication devices' and intermediaries remains to be seen through future judgments.

Common misconceptions

Myth: Any printout of a WhatsApp chat or email is automatically valid evidence in court.
Fact: Courts have held (in cases interpreting the equivalent earlier provision) that a proper certificate confirming how the record was created and that the device worked correctly is mandatory, unless the original device itself is produced in court.
Myth: This section only covers computers, not phones or messaging apps.
Fact: The 2023 law explicitly includes 'communication devices' like smartphones, and covers networks, cloud systems, and intermediaries, not just standalone computers.
Myth: Oral testimony describing an electronic record is enough without a certificate.
Fact: Under the interpretation developed for the earlier equivalent provision, oral evidence cannot substitute for the mandatory certificate, except in the narrow situation where the original electronic device is itself produced and proved in court.